Have you ever tried to photograph the moon? You know those nights, particularly in the solitude of the wilderness, when you look up and notice that the moon is just floating there looking perfect against the blackness of the sky and all you want to do is capture that moment on film.
You may have run for your camera.
But if you have ever tried, you already know that the results were disappointing.
Your photographs never did that moon - or that moment -- justice.
Perhaps it was an illusion you think, because you are no longer sure if your mental image of the moon was real or imagined.
This is heady stuff for the average weekend photographer.
But conquering this visual ambiguity is the focus of American-born, fine art photographer Neil Folberg.
"These are very complex photographs," says Neil.
"They are half reality and half imagination," he adds, referring both to the process involved in creating them and the images they describe.
Neil says that his concept is simple, but he readily agrees that achieving his vision is time-consuming and difficult.
To get that magical combination of a starry night with a detailed representation of the earth, for example, he must digitally combine two separate black and white negatives - one of the sky and one of the landscape.
Each original photograph is a richly toned print from a digitally altered negative.
And each presents an otherwise familiar scene in a magnificent and ethereal light.
One gallery that has shown Neil's work describes his landscape photographs as giving the sensation of walking around the countryside at night: communicating that moment when your body becomes extra sensitive to the soft sounds and movements on the surroundings.
And international art critics agree.
The New York Times describes another photograph from the exhibit, "Cactus" (1997), as pure magic.
It portrays the time when one's eyes adjust to the conditions of the night, when the subtle, gradual changes in light and shadow come to the fore.
It is about the moment when you feel as if you are seeing clearly for the first time.
In another, "Balistra" (2000) the area that represents the earth is staged.
The rocks that look at first to be enormous are, in reality, grape and fist size.
In fact, the smaller one is a slingshot stone that is thousands of years old, made to look large by the close-up view of the photograph..
"As a Dove" (1999) is the only photograph in the exhibit that is printed from one negative and is not altered.
The subject is the dark, daytime sky, where the partially obscured sun reflects of the sea as a winged, dove-like form.
According to the Candace Perich Gallery in Katonah, New York, where Neil's works are frequently on display, these are photographs of heaven and earth.
It's an interesting description considering that Neil chose to open his award-winning photography book with a line of well-know rabbinal writing, that reads: 'I will show you where heaven and earth kiss...
' which Jews interpret to mean The Land of Israell.
Obviously the land has affected the artist and he admits "I have tried to communicate the uniqueness of this ancient and holy land through my work.
" And he succeeds because visitors to the exhibit say that the photographs leave you wondering if they are of this earth.
There is definitely an other-world quality to them that cannot be easily described.
Similar to the land itself.
One of the few colored photographs in the exhibit is "Mt.
Sinai" (1982) and the more you look into it, the more you expect Moshe Rabeinu himself to appear and speak.
Born in San Fransciso in 1950, Neil moved to Jerusalem with his wife in 1976 and subsequently had three sons.
He soon began photographing the Sinai and later, synagogues all around the world.
Neil says that he and his wife came here because they were curious, and the land had so much meaning.
He is still curious and the land continues to provide him with subject matter.
"I am always looking for something wondrous," he admits.
With everything he photographs he is searching for its unique quality.
Take "Starry Grove" (1999), photographed in the Negev.
He was trying to capture a sense of contact with the infinite.
And whether you view it from a spiritual perspective or a scientific one, either way, it causes wonder.
Spirituality, he says, cannot be learned or taught.
It will automatically arise in those who want to see it.
"All art is revelation," he continues.
"There is always something hiding under the surface and when it reveals itself to you, it is all for the better.
"Art allows us to acknowledge the world beyond what we see and understand.
I am interested in revealing things that people keep deep inside themselves, but do not always realize exist until they are presented with the possibility.
It allows us to acknowledge that there is a world beyond what one knows.
" Neil's work is exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide and his photographs are in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, The Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.
C.
, the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, and the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, to name a few.
The Celestial Nights exhibit has already been shown at museums in France and Holland as well as galleries in New York, Atlanta and San Francisco.
Next, it is showing at the Cleveland (Ohio) Museum of Natural History.
In this series, the ancient land and skies of Israel are portrayed as places where the spiritual is at once near and yet far away.
And yes, his moons are exactly the way you imagined they should be.